Save 75% your first 30 days with the purchase of Equifax Complete™ Premier

$4.95 for the first 30 days, then $19.95 per month thereafter. You may cancel at any time; however, we do not provide partial month refunds.4

¹The credit scores provided under the offers described here use the Equifax Credit Score, which is a proprietary credit model developed by Equifax. The Equifax Credit Score and 3-Bureau scores are each based on the Equifax Credit Score model, but calculated using the information in your Equifax, Experian and TransUnion credit files. The Equifax Credit Score is intended for your own educational use. It is also commercially available to third parties along with numerous other credit scores and models in the marketplace. Please keep in mind third parties are likely to use a different score when evaluating your creditworthiness. Also, third parties will take into consideration items other than your credit score or information found in your credit file, such as your income.

²The Automatic Fraud Alert feature is made available to consumers by Equifax Information Services LLC and fulfilled on its behalf by Equifax Consumer Services LLC.

³Equifax Credit Report Control™ is only available while you have a current subscription to Equifax Complete Premier. Locking your credit file with Equifax Credit Report Control will prevent access to your Equifax credit file by certain third parties, such as credit grantors or other companies and agencies. Credit Report Control will not prevent access to your credit file at any other credit reporting agency, and will not prevent access to your Equifax credit file by companies like Equifax Personal Solutions which provide you with access to your credit report or credit score or monitor your credit file; Federal, state and local government agencies; companies reviewing your application for employment; companies that have a current account or relationship with you, and collection agencies acting on behalf of those whom you owe; for fraud detection and prevention purposes; and companies that wish to make pre-approved offers of credit or insurance to you. To opt out of such pre-approved offers, visit www.optoutprescreen.com/.

4We will require you to provide your payment information when you sign up and we will immediately charge your card $4.95. After that, we will charge the card $19.95 for each month you continue your subscription. You may cancel at any time; however, we do not provide partial month refunds.

Most people are generous by nature. We love to see the look on someone’s face when he or she gets the perfect gift—especially when that someone is a business associate with whom we’re eager to keep a good relationship. Tax tips: Get creative with gifts…

Most people are generous by nature. We love to see the look on someone’s face when he or she gets the perfect gift—especially when that someone is a business associate with whom we’re eager to keep a good relationship.

Tax tips: Get creative with gifts to work around IRS tax deduction limits

Unfortunately, the IRS tax laws limit tax deductions for business gifts to a total of $25 per person, per year. That means all gifts to your client through the whole year—including holidays, birthdays, and other occasions—cannot exceed $25 to any one person.

And remember that if you give your client’s son or daughter a gift, that is also considered a gift to your client. (Read chapter 3 of IRS Publication 463 for more details.)

The $25 limit can make it difficult to find gifts for your clients. The limit was probably reasonable when that amount could buy a set of fancy engraved pens or groceries for a family of five for a week.

But today you can barely buy a couple of movie tickets for $25.

What can you get for $25 these days? Well, you can get nice luggage tags, a pair of mugs, or a set of dessert dishes at Nordstrom. At Crate and Barrel, you can buy a set of holiday beer glasses, a picture frame, or vase.

But are these really the kinds of gifts you want to give a client or business associate? How can you get around this $25 limit?

1. Make sure you are meticulous about your accounting. Separate the cost of wrapping, engraving, shipping/delivery, and sales tax from the gift itself. That way, you can use the entire $25 gift allowance specifically for the gift.

Be very careful to properly record each component of the cost so it is accurately placed in its own separate account.

2. Give your clients something imprinted with your company’s name or logo. The cost limit for this is $4 per item, but your company may provide these items at little cost to you.

3. Take your clients to a show. If you accompany your clients to a show, you can treat the cost as an entertainment deduction. While entertainment is only 50 percent deductible, you can be much more generous to your client with show tickets than with gifts.

If you give your client the tickets and don’t attend the show with him or her, the deduction will be limited to $25—or $50 if the client’s spouse is specifically involved in the business.

What about deducting personal gifts?

There are no deductions for personal gifts. However, if the total amount of annual gifts to any one person is more than $14,000 in 2013 or 2014, you will have to file a gift tax return (Form 709) with the IRS.

No comments yet

Leave a Comment

We welcome your interest and participation on this forum, but be aware that comments will be published at Equifax's sole discretion.
Please don't use this blog to submit questions or concerns about your Equifax credit report or raise customer service issues.
Instead, you should contact Equifax directly for all such matters and any attempts to do so in this forum will be promptly re-directed.

Some other factors to consider when commenting:

Registration and privacy. While no registration is required to visit our forum, participants wishing to post a message must register by creating an account. All personal information provided by forum members incident to registration is governed by our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

All comments are anonymous. We'll delete your name, e-mail address, and any other identifying information, including details about your investments.

We can't post or respond to every comment - As much as we'd like to, we can't post every comment, nor can we guarantee that we will respond to each individual message. All questions or comments about your Equifax credit report or similar customer service issues should be handled by contacting Equifax directly.

Don't offer specific legal, tax or financial advice. All of the materials on this Site are for information, education, and noncommercial purposes only and this forum is not intended as a means of expressing views or ideas regarding any specific legal, tax, or investment advice. While offering general rules of thumb is both permitted and encouraged, recommending specific ideas or strategies regarding investments, taxes, and related matters is prohibited.

Credit Repair. This blog is not intended as a venue for the discussion or exchange of ideas regarding credit repair or other strategies intended to assist visitors and community members improve or otherwise modify their credit histories, ratings or scores.

Stay on topic. Your comment should be concise and pertain to the specific post in question.

Be respectful of the community. The use of profanity, offensive language, spam, and personal attacks will not be tolerated and egregious or repeat offenders will be banned from future participation. We encourage disagreement and healthy debate, but please refrain from personal attacks on our WordPresss and contributors.

Finally: Participation in this forum may be terminated by Equifax immediately and without notice for failure to comply with any guidelines or Terms of Use. As such, you should familiarize yourself with all pertinent requirements prior to submitting any response through the blog or otherwise. All opinions expressed in this forum are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and don't necessarily represent the views of Equifax or its management.

Equifax maintains this interactive forum for education and information purposes in order to allow individuals to share their relevant knowledge and opinions with other members and visitors. We encourage you to participate in discussions about personal finance issues and other topics of interest to this community, but please read our
commenting guidelines first.
Equifax reserves the right to monitor postings to the forum and comments will be published at our discretion. Do you have questions or comments about your Equifax credit report or customer-service issues regarding an Equifax product? If so, please
contact Equifax directly.
All opinions and information expressed or shared in blog comments are solely those of the person submitting the comments, and don't necessarily represent the views of Equifax or its management.